Paula Pinho is Director of Just Transition at the European Commission Directorate-General for Energy. She was responsible for Energy Strategy and Policy coordination and then for Renewables and Energy System Integration Policy and Decarbonisation and Sustainability of Energy Sources. She was Acting Director for Energy Policy where she has overseen notably the work of international energy relations, financial instruments and inter-institutional relations.

Paula has also been Member of Cabinet of EU Commissioners, including Commissioner for Energy Günther Oettinger both in his quality of Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society and during his mandate as EU Commissioner for Energy. She was then responsible for energy security and infrastructure and the overall coordination of the international dimension of energy policy.

As a member of the Cabinet, she has been involved in the trilateral gas talks between the EU, Russia and Ukraine. While Head of Unit responsible for Energy Strategy and Policy Coordination, Paula has coordinated the preparation and adoption of the “Clean Energy for all Europeans” package. Paula represented the Commission in the negotiations of the Commission Proposal for a Regulation on the Governance of the Energy Union and was responsible notably for the overall coordination of the assessment of the national Energy and Climate Plans. Paula speaks fluently Portuguese, German, English and French, as well as Spanish and Italian.

We’re excited to announce our new Future Cities podcast and are kicking off the series with our interview with Paula Pinho.

PAULA PINHO

This is a very important question because cities are really living labs of everything that we're doing in terms of energy policy, and it’s extremely important that whatever we are putting forward in terms of policy, if it is not embraced by the citizens in cities on the local level, the best policies will not serve any purpose if they not really taken up by citizens, and so we've been working a lot hand in hand with cities. You may have heard of the Covenant of Mayors which brings together cities, initially across the EU, but thanks to its big success, today it’s bringing together cities across the world, the global Covenant of Mayors.

And it is really exciting to see how many cities through their mayors, through their local populations are adhering to the decarbonization goals and you see how despite the differences, because we're talking about cities across the whole world, a shared objective of decarbonization, decarbonizing the public transport, decarbonizing the way we go about building efficiency, the way we consume energy, but also the way we produce energy with solar panels, for instance, being rolled out with the support of policies and sometimes with the support of funding. So it’s really crucial to work with cities to see how it plays out everything that's is being proposed. How does it play out in the various cities? We also have what is called the Cities Mission which again builds upon the cities, in view of decarbonization and sometimes it's really interesting to see how the individual cities are more ambitious than their national government and are really pushing ahead and are giving the example. And for us it’s absolutely crucial because these cities are showing it is possible to implement these policies, these targets on renewables, on energy-efficiency, on climate, and they are showing that it is possible to implement, they’re showing the difference in terms of air quality, in terms of quality life for their citizens, so it's an impressive partnership and one but I really would not like to give up.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS · ONE PLANET PODCAST

How do we educate for the future? How can each of us become more climate literate? How important is training and teaching young people about climate change, science, and their role in shaping change and as the leaders of tomorrow?

PINHO

You raising really a very important aspect which is how do we communicate with citizens about policies? How do we raise awareness, and of course a lot through education, early at school. Personally, I think we're still far from an ideal school program. We should introduce new disciplines in terms of sustainability from early on. I'm always impressed I have to say nonetheless by the awareness of young people and even children, I speak of my own children who are sometimes more conscious and environmentally friendly than their parents and draw our attention to how to go about energy consumption efficiently and not to buy fruits in plastics. I think of course today there is much more awareness than in my generation and the generation of my parents, but I think we could do much more from much earlier on in a structured manner to raise awareness, bring it into school programs, how important it is to care for the planet. How it can be done by every single one of us in the way we consume not just energy, but our choices, of what we buy in the supermarket or grocery shops. There's much more that can be done.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS · ONE PLANET PODCAST

There are many sustainable development goals. Which is the most important for you, and which do you feel we are coming closest to achieving?

PINHO

I think there's still a lot to be done. I think of all of the sustainable development goals of course I’d be suspicious if I said that the one about affordable and clean energy is a key one. But to be honest, I think quality education is really the basis, I would call it really the foundation for practically all the sustainable development goals. If you ensure quality education, all the rest will be easier, all the other goals.

And then of course the background of one sustainable development goal that we have unfortunately overlooked because we have taken it for granted over the past decades, which is really peace and justice. In Europe, we've been spoiled in a way, apart from the situation in Yugoslavia, but otherwise for 16 years, we've been spared. This is in a way unprecedented in history. It’s now two generations, my generation, the generation my children who have been living without seeing a war in Europe. And I think we’ve all taken that for granted and a week now since the invasion of Ukraine, we are being reminded that this is not to be taken for granted and that we need to continue to nurture peace, to nurture the democratic values actively. That it’s not there and accomplished and we can just take it for granted. It needs to be nurtured by all on a daily basis.

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I’ve been working on energy now for almost 12 years. I worked in different areas also on trade. I was responsible back then in the cabinet already for energy security at a crucial time. All the way heading to 2014, where we were again faced with a threat that gas supplies would be disrupted from Russia over Ukraine, where we would have been the victims of the side-effect of already some confrontation between Ukraine and Russia. Today it feels like take two of this episode, except back then it was really limited to energy, and today it became what it is, which is really a human tragedy – much beyond energy. In 2013 and 2014, I was involved in the negotiations to reach a trilateral agreement between Russia, Ukraine, and the EU, so as to ensure supplies of gas through Ukraine because, as you know, the biggest supplier of gas to the EU and also of oil in Ukraine, and we were keen on having these two countries, the supplier and also Ukraine as a transit country to work together and worried about energy security of the EU but also worried about energy security of Ukraine. That was of course also after the financial crisis, which hit us, when I was also already working with the cabinets and where you see the challenge of finding solutions beyond national borders – because these challenges, be it the financial crisis, be it now with COVID, be it back then also the energy security threat – these are all challenges that we have been facing in the EU but some of them also globally which can really not have a proper response only at a national level, and where it is of crucial importance that we put our forces together and that we find common solutions.

We realize the green deal and what we are aiming at is not just about decarbonization, and this is really one of the big challenges that our society is facing today is climate change. And the green deal is about tackling that societal challenge, which is climate change, but it is more than that. For the EU, it is also about energy security and about diversification. And if it is was not clear to everyone, I think today, within one week, we’ve seen even those who may have been, let’s say, more reserved about some of the ambitions of the green deal, now realize that it’s absolutely urgent to diversify, even more than we have in the past few years and to radically reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. And of course within that dependence, to reduce our dependence on our main supplier. We really need to bring that dependence down and replace it with renewable energy, make the most of energy efficiency, make the most of sustainability and circularity. So the green deal is in my view further boosted with this horrible tragedy which reminds us of many many values that we pursue but which we are not always aware of. Peace, democracy, but also now the need for a sustainable economy and a decarbonized energy system.

This interview was conducted by Mia Funk & Cynthia Desmet Villar with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producer on this podcast was Cynthia Desmet Villar. Digital Media Coordinator is Phoebe Brous.
Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast (Conversations about Climate Change & Environmental Solutions).